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Introspection Rundown ("baby watching", "isolation watch")

«A therapy for handling psychotic breaks in the cult. Involves locking
the person up to prevent bad PR
with the isolation step, also called "baby watch". Sometimes instilling
such wacky ideas as Xenu,
Body Thetans and
OT III can make people a
bit unstable; the IRD is used to contain people when they flip out.» —
The ARS Acronym/Terminology FAQ v3.5
by Martin Hunt.

A "rundown" in Scientology is a series of prescribed steps designed
to produce a certain end result. These steps involve "auditing", which
is looking back through a person's past to find some memory that is
causing the person present time problems. The Introspection Rundown
is designed to handle a psychotic break or mental breakdown. The theory
of the Introspection Rundown is that if you can find what caused the
person to become introverted and psychotic then you can handle that
cause and break the psychotic episode.

The first step of the rundown is "isolate the
person wholly with all attendants completely muzzled (no speech)."
[1] Auditing sessions are given infrequently to search for the cause
of the psychotic break during this rundown, otherwise the person is
isolated in complete silence.

My guess is that Hubbard foresaw failures in handling psychotics with
his methods. Unlikely however, is the possibility that he ever considered
people would DIE while undergoing "treatment" with Scientology's methods,
especially by certain procedures contained in his Introspection Rundown.
Sadly, Lisa McPherson is one
such person who died as a result of negligence from her Scientologist
"friends". She had been held in isolation at Scientology's facility
in Clearwater, Florida for seventeen days, during which time her body
weight dropped an estimated 47 pounds, going from about 155 pounds down
to 108 pounds!

What right does the church have to incarcerate mentally unstable people?
What training do they have to prevent injury to the unstable person?
What recourse or input does the person incarcerated have? What criteria
are used to decide that the isolation is no longer needed? What training
do the supervisors get to make such a decision over the length of someone's
incarceration? How many people have gotten worse instead of better?
What happens if a person never gets better, since Scientology considers
psychiatry to be quack science? How long can isolation be maintained?
Months? Years?

On December 5, 1995, Lisa
McPherson was dead on arrival at a hospital 45 minutes north of
Clearwater Florida. According to the coroner's report, Lisa was underweight,
severely dehydrated, and had bruises and bug bites.

46. While aboard ship during the early 1970s, Hubbard introduced " isolation
watches" where an individual is forcibly confined after a "psychotic
break" (a mental breakdown, usually caused by Scientology's hypnotic
procedures). Such people can be held for weeks
under 24-hour guard [JCA-104], [JCA-105]. The procedure is referred
to as "babywatching" or "babysitting" in Scientology. In 1994, The Independent
newspaper in Britain published an account of "babywatching" [JCA-106].
HCO Ethics Order 2543 of 28 September 1993, concerning Heidi Degro,
makes it clear that the practice is still in use [JCA-105]. Indeed,
the practice forms a part of Scientology's incontrovertible "scripture"
[JCA-104].

Scientology killed
Lisa McPherson in Clearwater, Florida, on December 5, 1995. She
was held against her will for 17 days, denied medical care, and forcibly
sedated. When her guards tried to force her to undergo the
Introspection Rundown and she refused, she was kept in an isolation
lock-down until she died from severe dehydration. Forensic entomologists
later identified 110
cockroach
feeding sites on her body, and three nationally prominent forensic
pathologists opined that
the manner of death was "homicide". (The pathologists were Calvin
Bandt, M.D. (affidavit),
Werner Spitz, M.D. (affidavit),
and John Coe, M.D.)

My roommate at the Hacienda, Len Thomas, told me in 1991,
that he had to watch a public at the Sandcastle,
who had gone "PTS Type III" after auditing (PTS Type III = someone,
who has gone crazy). He said that the woman was put into a room, which
she couldn’t leave and that he had to watch her, without saying anything
to her until she would get better.

Few days later, when I
asked him about that woman, he told me, that she was sent home,
after she had calmed down.

The Introspection Rundown is a
Church of Scientology procedure that is intended to handle a psychotic
break or complete mental breakdown. Other words for this condition include,
"raving maniac." Introspection is defined for the purpose of this rundown
as a condition where the person is: "looking into one's own mind, feelings,
reactions, etc." The end result or "the end phenomena of the Introspection
Rundown is the person extroverted, no longer looking inward worriedly
continuously without end." (Technical Bulletins X, published by Bridge
Publications, Inc.
ISBN 0-88404-481-5 copyright 1991).

The Introspection Rundown came to controversial public attention
after the death of
Lisa McPherson on the rundown in
1995.
The Church of Scientology now requires members sign a waiver
specifically against suing the Church over injury or death before
taking the Introspection Rundown.

Another time, I got really sick and couldn't keep any food or water
down. After losing a lot of weight and not getting
better after a couple weeks I was sent to ethics and put in
isolation in a room in the FH [Fort
Harrison]. Again, I was "enturbulating"
my husband by being PTS. The door was locked, and only the MLO came
a few times a day to bring "cal-mag" and vitamins and soup. I was pretty
freaked out, and thought I was going to die there all alone in that
dark, stinky moldy room, but I knew if I made a fuss I would NEVER
get out, so I was very cooperative.

My friend
Dale Bogen was on the Introspection RD at American Saint Hill in
1984 and apparently they thought she was safe enough to go home but
instead, she drove her car up the rode to the Los Angeles Mountain area,
got out of the car with the engine running and stuck a rag in the exhaust
pipe; she then got back in the car, locked the doors and escaped the
problem of having to endure further degradation from her 'church' by
letting the carbon monoxide poison take her away from the pain and confusion
Scientology never knew how to help.

She was found in the morning.
ASHO's Bob Schaffner
it's the one who informed me when I inquired months later after returning
from being out of town.

Bob, himself, died in a preventable accident but there are
other people who know about what happened to Dale Bogen and I pray
they come to their senses and contact me so the truth can be
exposed.

The woman was incoherent and had bruises and scratches on her legs,
wrists and neck, police said. She was kept behind a door into
which a small, square opening was cut and steel bars had been inserted,
police said.

Her husband, Edwin Coenan, 41, was arrested the same
day and booked on suspicion of false imprisonment and endangering a
dependent adult. He has been released on $5,000 bail, and no charges
have been filed.

The woman's father and stepmother, Floyd and Audrey Twede, as well
as the victim's half-brother, Steven, are also under investigation,
police said. The Twedes rented the house on Rolling Hills Drive where
the woman was confined.

Police said they saw Scientology printed material in the house and
plan to review documents written by Scientology's late founder L. Ron
Hubbard that describe how to treat mental breakdowns.
In the documents, Hubbard recommended isolation
as a treatment and also warned his followers to avoid conventional psychiatric
care.

According to eyewitnesses, the man, whose name is known to the "Independent",
was taken to an isolated room in a communal building not far from Saint
Hill, a 17th-century manor house in East Grinstead, West Sussex, and
the UK headquarters of the cult.

For two weeks, the room was locked.
The German had been placed on an "isolation watch"
- or what Scientologists more informally refer to as a "baby watch".
It is a treatment that was prescribed by the founder of the cult,
L. Ron Hubbard,
a science fiction writer, for members showing signs of psychosis or
mental ill- health -- people who are, literally, plagued by evil spirits.
It is the last resort for dealing with difficult Scientologists. It
is a treatment that the organisation has so far kept secret.

A former Scientologist from Denmark said Friday that he
helped force bread, fruit and liquids into the throat of an
unconscious woman as part of an effort help her recover from
a mental breakdown.

Karsten Lorenzen's detailed account at a news conference
held by a group of Scientology critics resembles the
experience of Lisa McPherson, as documented by state
investigators and Clearwater police. McPherson was the
36-year-old Scientologist whose 1995 death has resulted in
criminal charges of abuse and practicing medicine without a
license against the Church of Scientology in Clearwater.

McPherson, too, was recovering from a mental breakdown,
and records show church staffers forced medicine and food
into her throat.

30. A major part of the trauma a person experiences in Scientology's
"isolation" treatment is the person's struggle to get away or to get
out of the room they are being confined in. The young woman I
had to "iso watch" had numerous injuries as a result of her
beating on the walls and the door trying to get away. She
would drift in and out of her psychotic state. I was informed
by the security guard watching over us all that her family was
desperately trying to find her and during the times when she was
"okay" I had to let her call her mother after I told her what to
say. I held a separate phone while she talked to her family
and when things started to get "weird" I would end the conversation.
She would tell her mother that she was okay and would be home soon.
During this time she became very upset with me because I made her
see a doctor she did not know and who was not allowed to talk to her
while he was giving her shots. She physically attacked me on
more than one occasion. This was a public relations nightmare
for Scientology and this is why she was told to lie to her family
about what was really going on with her. This went on for two
months. After she seemed stable for a week and completed the
"Introspection Rundown" she was made to sign a release form which in
essence said Scientology was not responsible for what had happened
to her and she was quickly sent home.

17. In December 1989 I went back to Florida for the purpose of doing
a process called the Purification Rundown but was again forced to do
the Introspection Rundown auditing. I left without Case Supervisor
approval which was always required prior to leaving the Flag Land Base
in Florida. I left in the middle of the night and took a taxi to a hotel
near Tampa airport because I did not want to be on Scientology premises
or continue the Introspection Rundown. Also, I made phone
calls to the Clearwater, Florida or Tampa, Florida police saying
that I was being held against my will. The Scientologists had the
phone in my room cut off when I did this.

I was put onto an Audited Rundown called the "Introspection Rundown."
This rundown I do not know a large amount of information about. But
simply the name of it implies that it is intended to be given to people
who are manifesting introversion of some particular nature. I have been
shown a photocopied page of the bulletin which outlines the Introspection
Rundown and it stated something along these lines — "the Introspection
Rundown is applied to people who make continual originations to the
examiner and are particularly interested in their case." That
is what I was shown as the LRH reference which is being applied as
to why I was put through this horrible experience of being Audited
on a Rundown that I never needed in the first place.

119. The first step is to isolate the person completely from everyone
except the people assigned to watch over the person.
This is called "Isolation Watch." I was assigned
to watch this girl, so I studied the issues to ensure I would handle
her correctly. We were not to say a word around her. She was
to have complete silence to allow her to calm down (to allow her body
thetans to go back to sleep, although she could not be told about this,
since she was not up to that level in her processing). This went on
for many days as she was in a serious psychotic incident. None of the
people assigned to watch her had any formal training in dealing with
psychosis. [...]

124. Cat was taken to the home of a wealthy
Scientologist outside of Los Angeles. The house was surrounded with
woods and there were no other houses in sight. There Cat was kept
under 24 hour watch, known as "Isolation Watch" because the person
is isolated from everyone except those on the "watch." Although I
was not assigned to watch her, I was told that Cat became extremely
violent on several occasions, that she tried to jump through a plate
glass window, that she repeatedly said she wanted to kill herself,
and that she had no idea who she was or what she was doing. This
went on for several months.